In which the author ponders the question, "If you admit that you are a hypocrite, are you really a hypocrite?" He then provides his honest commentary on a number of fascinating topics. He insists, however, that his readers form their own opinions.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The headline reads - "Warning: Using a mobile phone while pregnant can seriously damage your baby" - when it should read - "Danish mother's self-reported use of cell phones during pregnancy (seven years ago) is associated with a possible increase of mother's self reported behavioral problems of 7 year olds as measured by the Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire from 10% of total children to 14%-22% of total children." I guess that headline is a little too long and exacting to sell papers or get the links. I am not the only one that thinks this, there are others.

In reading this news report and looking into the study I have discovered some obvious facts:

Newspaper headlines are written sensationally to increase sales and readers.

Cell phones, pregnant women and babies are easy targets.

I am way too cheap to pay $35 for one academic article in Epidemiology.

In spite of that you can still find some analysis for free on the internet.

The paper reports an odds ratio (ratio of the odds of disease in an exposed group over the odds of disease in an unexposed group) of 1.8 with 95% confidence interval from 1.45-2.23, which combined with the 10% abnormal data above suggests the increase from 10% with behavioral problems to ~14%-22% of children with behavioral problems as defined by the SDQ.

The authors of the paper certainly do not present a conclusion like the sensational headline above. Prenatal and postnatal exposure to cell phones was associated with overall behavioral problems in children. The authors themselves concluded that these results should be interpreted with caution. The observed association is not necessarily causal and may be due to factors not investigated in this study.

I wish that reporters and the general public read the news and these studies with the healthy skepticism and critical thinking that is required to understand them and to modify their behaviors only in the face of actual understood risk. That also does not sell newspapers.

If someone sends me the article or the $35 for it I will happy to complete an analysis of the article.

3 comments:

I care! I'm pregnant and if the media are feeding me sensationalised information, I want to know about it! Thankyou for your insight into this issue. Pregnant women are easy targets because we want to do the right thing by our unborn children.